Several weeks ago I wrote about the silence of God and what hearing God might look like and ended the story with an open-ended question about what we are hearing from God today.

As you can no doubt tell, I believe that the creator of the universe is still in process of interacting with His creation—much like the walks He took with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. And that statement alone can probably cause as much controversy as the act of speaking in tongues ever has.

Lots of people have done many horrendous things during our history out of the belief that they have heard God speak something to them—in this group we have the schizophrenic and psychopath and other wise disturbed peoples of the world.

In all of this bad stuff people have done in the name of God, none of it was found in the new covenant we have with Him through the sacrifice of Jesus as described in the New Testament. Jesus didn’t kill those who didn’t like Him and thought He was a misfit—he blessed them and prayed for them and even had dinner with those people who were culturally despised for their jobs and/or positions, etc.—taxpayers, politicians, women caught in adultery and the like.

Scripture is very clear on the subject of wrath: Judgment is mine says the Lord—I will repay (Romans 12:19).

Personally, what I am hearing is a mixture of things—some is God and some is what I think He is saying.

The first thing I am hearing is about thinking new. We all remember that old saying which says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I believe the church as we have known it is in the same place. It is my impression that many church leaders believe that God has created one painting and only one painting and that we need to paint it over and over again every time we meet. This with the knowledge that no DNA chain is the same as any other and that each and every snowflake is unique as it falls from the sky.

We have all been there at one time or another. As a praise and worship leader for many years, I knew what it took to get to certain places and often repeated myself in order to facilitate this experience again and again. Not that repetition is bad, but using a technique to simulate the presence of the Holy Spirit is something else again.

Thinking new also means thinking in biblical terms—I am reminded of the verse that says: as a man thinks, so he is (Prov. 23:7). It is also interesting to note that while listening to Earl Nightingale the other day, he said the very same thing about becoming successful. The way he put it was that what a man spends his time thinking about, he becomes—clearly another way of saying the same thing as Proverbs 23. His point being that the process of us becoming anything in life requires us to put some brain power to it—to interact with the Creator in a creative way in order that we become the “unique” person we are (my words added to his).

Indeed, the canvas of our faces has changed along with the shape of our bodies over the years we have sojourned on this planet.

Or to sum up this brief line of thought—If you want to be rich, spend time thinking about what it takes to achieve that goal. If your desire is to be “Christ like” the same is true—although it is more through a relationship dynamic that this end is realized rather than a purely cerebral methodology.

I am also “hearing” (my internal/eternal sense) that this is the year to really make our gardens productive. Along with that, through a multitude of witnesses, having 30 days of food supplies available, in case the distribution chain gets temporarily disrupted. It is not a Y2K mentality but rather a be prepared service mentality that drives this thought home to me. We all know that if times get rough for a period that those without preparation will be knocking on our doors—and we need to be ready to invite them in—trusting the rest of what we haven’t prepared for to God—come what may.

Of course, keeping out of debt and paying down your existing debt is something that we have been hearing for awhile now. The only way to do this is to think new. Sandi, my wife, wants laminate wood floors to replace our linoleum and carpet which has seen better days. Her idea was to sell books on Amazon dot com. At first I was sceptical (as I often am) about this idea, but with a few books from my shelves added to hers, we have almost earned the floor money in just under two months—and the basement got a little less crowded in the process.

This is not all that we are hearing but is a start at beginning to understand what is happening around us during this point in our collective and individual histories.

Feel free to add what you are picking up on and in the meantime, enjoy the ride.